In the an article about Bosch (Hieronymus Bosch, my 2nd favorite European artist) from the Prague-an atelier Praga Mystica, there’s one word about the decline of the attention towards Bosch a century after his death aka. since the Thirty Years War that attracts me:
“The time of the advent of science and positivist thinking in its mechanical, black-and-white and interlocking world had no place for painters of ‘nonsense and fantasy’.”
A few points that I’d like to discuss/comment:
- The pursuit of science => one realizes that this is not the opposite of Bosch’s world only after one has found out that science is also not the answer of the world, just as religion.
- “positivist” => Bosch is often perceived as a profound pessimist, is this one of the important reasons that I’m obsessed with him? That we share this dim belief, just as why I resonate with Boris Vian?
- “mechanical, black-and-white world” => Seemingly the Achilles’ Heel of science and the typical Western philosophy, Dualism; actually the crack on this egg shell/dam — the proof of why it doesn’t work for everything. I myself is quite a dualist-by-force, I’ve been trying to rule this out of my philosophy, but the reason why it can’t be done overnight is that, unfortunately, I’m enjoying the practicality of its explanatory power over most of things despite that what can’t be explained by Dualism bothers me.
- Of course spiritual world isn’t equal to superstition, they’re just a slogan that the up-risers needed on their flagship, it’s of no radical importance, but more of an exigent one. Eventually we look back, find out that it was of no reason to attack Bosch’s vision.
But what is right, eventually?
Is there an ultimate truth of the world? If there isn’t, then what are we looking for?
Do we need a truth? Or we just need to be eternal enquirers?
Anyway, what is spin??
In the same article, at the end, the author says:
“… an age which led the curiosity and wise rationality of the Renaissance to an absurd position by letting reason rule over emotion and matter over spirit. To an age that separated art and science and thus gave birth to heartless science.”
Indeed a bit of “story of my life”, a person of curiosity, rationality, reason and heartlessness.